Wayne Miller dies from illness on Wednesday. Wayne Miller was known for his series of photographs, The Way of Life of the Northern Negro. He had been a contributor to Magnum Photos since 1958. Miller dies at the ripe old age of 94.

Wayne Miller was best known for his series of portraits chronicling the lives of black Americans in Chicago after serving with an elite Navy unit that produced some of the most indelible combat images of World War II.

He had lived in Orinda for six decades and become ill only in the last weeks of his life, and peacefully dies at 94, his granddaughter Inga Miller said.

His best-known wartime photograph shows a wounded pilot being pulled from a downed fighter plane. Miller had been scheduled to be aboard the plane before it was shot down, and the photographer who took his place was killed.

Miller was also known for his work as a curator on an international photojournalism exhibition called "The Family of Man" and for contributing the photos to Dr. Benjamin Spock's "A Baby's First Year."

years in the late 1940s on the city's south side capturing the experiences of black residents, many of whom had moved north during the war in search of jobs and the promise of civil rights.

The originals from his "The Way of the Northern Negro" series are now held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.

"He was tired of what a good job photography was doing of showing the way we were destroying each other and he decided to come back and have the medium connect people in a more meaningful fashion," said Paul Berlanga, director of Chicago's Stephen Daitler Gallery. "He wanted to bring the white and black races together, and thought to make a photo documentary to introduce black Chicago to white Chicago and to white America."

He spent the next several decades as a photojournalist for Life, Ebony, the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines. For six years, he was president of Magnum Photos, a photographer's cooperative. Magnum's current president, Alex Majoli, praised Miller as a pioneer who "paved the ground for the rest of us who tried to depict the streets, the real life."

"It might have seemed like golden years for photographers now, but he had to invent himself in many ways, a character trait I highly appreciate in people," Majoli said.

Miller produced an intimate book of his photography called "The World is Young."

After retiring as a photographer Miller took to his other passion, defending the preservation of California's redwood forests. Miller restored a clear-cut patch of forest and helped lobby for laws that provided incentives for landowners to protect rather than log trees.